His father might be busy trying to score the GOP’s presidential nomination, but U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is taking the time to speak at a Town Hall-style meeting in Northern Kentucky next week.Paul is scheduled to attend an event organized by the Northern Kentucky Tea Party on Feb. 24. It will be held at the Calvin Perry Community Center, 8536 W. Main St., in Alexandria.The meeting, which is free and open to the public, will begin at 2 p.m. and last for about an hour. Paul will speak first, then answer questions from the audience.In the Tea Party’s announcement of the event, Paul is described as “a true champion of freedom” who has “worked to stop the EPA's war on coal.”Paul, 49, is the son of U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) who is seeking the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.Elected to the Senate in November 2010, the younger Paul is also a practicing ophthalmologist in Bowling Green, Ky.Paul made headlines during his campaign when he said he disliked portions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the landmark legislation that outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin in hotels, motels, restaurants, theaters and all other public accommodations engaged in interstate commerce.A restaurant or other private business with no government funding should be allowed to discriminate, he said. “In a free society, we will tolerate boorish people who have abhorrent behavior,” Paul added.

Atlanta publisher Andrew B. Adler’s “kill
Obama” column challenges my “fight-words-with-words” standard response
to vicious publications and speech. It never should have been
published. No, he’s not a racist, anti-Semitic crank
or advocate of sex among boys, clerics and coaches. Sick as they are, I
wouldn’t muzzle them so long as they are willing to accept the
consequences.

The state representative Alicia Reece has introduced a bill that would reduce
the number of reasons for making voters cast provisional ballots and
also clarifies that election officials will be held responsible for
errors instead of blaming voters.

After a
flight from Canada to Shanghai, the singer for Behind Sapphire was detained and placed in
jail for six days for what he claims to have “accidentally” hidden in
his luggage. A glock? Hand grenade? Snacks from Panda Express? Nope —
the vocalist was reportedly jailed because his suitcase contained
collectible antique bullets from World War I.

The Tea Party is super duper pissed after Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa (not that Jimmy Hoffa!) called on union supporters unhappy with congressional Republicans to “take these son-of-a-bitches out.” The Tea Party Express called the comments “inexcusable,” saying the comments amounted to “a call for violence on peaceful Tea Party members.”

Talking to scientists is always kind of crazy — you know they’re smarter than you but the slightest amount of eye contact makes them start talking so fast you can’t even pretend to be following. The AP today checked in with a group of extremely enthusiastic scientists on their own terms (by phone), reporting the details of a black hole eating a star 3.8 billion light years from Earth and then shooting matter out of its center at 80-90 percent of the speed of light (I know, right?!?).

The hillside neighborhood that overlooks downtown to the west is making a rebound after years of suffering due to bad policy decisions by bureaucrats. Crime reported in the East, West and Lower Price Hill areas took a steep 20.2 percent drop in the first six months of 2011 compared to the same period a year ago, according to statistics compiled by Cincinnati Police.

It’s time to change your shopping habits to help save democracy. That’s the message of the loosely organized, shadowy group of computer hacktavists known as “Anonymous,” the group responsible for coordinating online protests to promote freedom of speech and free, unrestricted access to the Internet.

Those of us who long ago replaced our iPods with the one Apple invented that also has a phone in it don’t have to worry about getting our cars broken into for leaving our 8-gig sitting on the seat (in which case we’d only really care about the broken window and change missing from the console). Hamilton County Sheriff Simon Leis today broke Rule No. 2 when it comes to leaving electronics in plain sight of thieves: Don’t forget about the charger.

Concern is quickly growing over the New Year's Eve deaths of red-winged blackbirds, grackles and starlings that fell out of the skies over Beebe, Ark., with the most likely explanations involving biblical end times, secret government weapons testing and aliens mistakenly thinking birds are in charge of Earth because they can fly.